The Open Casket

March 24, 2015

I have lived in southwest Missouri my whole life. I come from hard-working, God-fearing stock. The nuances and traditions of Midwestern life I know very well and generally appreciate. But there is something I just don't get after 41 years of up-close-and-personal exposure:  the open casket.

Don't get me wrong:  I have immense respect for death and grief and all the processes therein. I attended more funerals by the time I was in second grade than I had had play dates. In fact, my brother wisely requested (after yet another Baptist funeral dinner in our young lives) that, "if they're going to bring chicken, I wish they'd bring extra crispy." As I've grown up, my sensitivity to the pain of death has remained steadfast. Loss is part of life and it is awful. My complete befuddlement at the opening of the casket for the corpse all the world to see has also not abated. 

In fact, a recent "viewing" heightened said wonder. At the graveside funeral of a distant uncle came a first for me:  the open casket NEXT to the open grave.  That's right, as we all gathered 'round before the service began, the lid was lifted. And THEN we watched (or I suppose I should speak only for myself, as I watched) as the funeral director arranged the uncle's hands, tie, and suit coat. Only the raucous cry of the rooster at the neighboring house/scrap metal depository could distract me momentarily from this display. My father-in-law urged me on as he leaned to me and requested, "if they open my casket, you better close it!" I quickly consented, adding that this moment fueled my very CLEAR plans for cremation when my time comes. You can DustBuster my ashes if you like, but no parade past my waxy remains, thank you very much.

Attention to the phenomenon of the "viewing" of the dearly departed certainly isn't new or unique to me. The most vocal in her disdain for this practice is one of my nearest and dearest who also happened to be my principal in the heyday of my teaching career. Tragically, one of our freshmen had been killed in a ATV accident at the beginning of school during that time. Much to my surprise after such a violent accident, the casket was open. As I stood nearby, waiting to offer my condolences to her poor parents, I began to tear up. Seeing me on the brink of a bit of a meltdown, my pal sidled up to me and informed me that she promised her husband that she would haunt him for the rest of his life if her coffin wasn't sealed shut. "Take a good look now, sis," she cautioned. My tears turned to inappropriate laughter and ensuing horror that I was giggling in the midst of this awful scene. Nonetheless, I will always remain in her debt for the momentary reprieve.

Funerals aren't funny. But funerals are funny. They have to be or we would all implode. It might be after-the-fact that we recount how our favorite aunts posed next to the open casket of grandma for a few quick photos; or how my dad (an aficionado of funerals whose first memory in life was his cousin's body laid out in the living room after being killed in battle) is quick to critique and/or affirm the work of the funeral home makeup artist. But one of my favorites was when my 9-year-old son was making his way past the body of one of his great aunts.

Unlike many of my contemporaries, I have exposed my children to the displayed departed since they were babies. Some might find it morbid, but I figure the open casket is as common around here as death itself, so they might as well peek in early. It is what it is. The result, I must admit, is two well-adjusted mourners who know how to behave when a cadaver is present. Nonetheless, as Drew and I walked by the casket at this particular visitation, he was appropriately reverent. But the moment we cleared the coffin, he whispered in my ear, "wouldn't it be hilarious if she just popped up when we walked by?" Indeed, it would have been hilarious.

I held my grandmother's hand as the life left her and she grew cold. I didn't need to see her gone (but believe me--I did). I count still on my mind's eye to see her sitting in her rusty recliner and hear her laughing or asking me "honey, did you mean for your hair to look like that today?" I prefer the mental or visual pics of whomever I've lost when they weren't yet lost. 

The ache of grief will be there for us--open or closed. And for some, "open" lessens the ache somehow. Here's the thing: if the open way is your way, more power to you. I will honor the wishes of my loved ones who will undoubtedly opt for a viewing after they have gone on to their great reward. And if I'm at your funeral I will pay my respects like my well-seasoned and genuine bereaved self. I still won't get it, but I promise I will remark to my fellow passers-by on your behalf, "they really look good. Better than they looked at the end, don't you think?" Just like my Dad taught me.

Out of Sight

February 12, 2015

Today I listened to an interview of David Sedaris, one of my favorite authors and undoubtedly one of the funniest and sharpest observers of life on the planet. During his remarks, he advised, "Never let people see you trying." While this advice was specifically about writing, it struck a broader chord with me: how true it is that that which seems effortless yet beautiful or successful inspires even more admiration and awe. But Sedaris's quote doesn't imply lack of effort. Rather, the effort that produces beauty and success need not be in plain sight.

I couldn't be a worse example of such subtlety. Everything I have ever done has required work that I'm woefully inadequate to hide. But such is certainly not the case for a host of my heroes: those exceptional people who exemplify phenomenal ability and/or talent without broadcasting the immense effort that creates the phenomenon.

One of my best friends is an accomplished author and consultant who travels the country improving educators' methods and mindsets. To her, it is a natural outpouring of who she is and what she knows. To me, it looks like the arduous path of a genius. 

Another friend and former student is now a doctor specializing in all things throat-ish. He spends his days with the fate of voices and airways in his careful hands. I go on and on about how amazing it is: "it's just me, what I do. Nothing special," he responds. His humility is genuine.

Unfortunately for humanity, the "look what I did and how hard I worked to do it" mentality is the norm. Opposite of Sedaris's advice, we oft scream from the rooftops (or, perhaps more accurately, our laptops) just how tried and true are our efforts, from that harried trip to the store described in detail via status update to how we toiled away at _______ to achieve _______.

Interestingly enough, we also publicize our own sacrifices whilst downplaying whatever it was: "really, it was nothing." We all know it was something. Come on. It is one thing for someone else to recognize a greatness in us. It is another for us to wear our own banner. Such is the nature of that pride that indeed "goeth before destruction." Such is also the unique gift that comes when something special we have done or can do is celebrated without us throwing our own party.

Author Lorraine Hansberry observed, "The thing that makes you exceptional, if you are at all, is inevitably that which must also make you lonely." There is a sweetness to a solitude borne out of quiet excellence that lacks any pretense. While we (I) may crave recognition for every stride, how much more meaningful is the work no one sees. Contrary to the common mathematical directive, we need not always show our work.

The Cliff

December 1, 2014

On the local news tonight I watched the broken father of a teenage boy—a talented 17-year-old killed alongside 3 friends in a truck crash in a neighboring town—tearfully attempt to confront the remaining shards of life without his son.  I saw his bravery facing the cameras from the bottom of the cliff of this most abominable grief.  He acknowledged how he longed to wake up from what he hoped was a horrific dream; and then he thanked God for the years they had together as he admitted there was no waking from this loss.

I watched this news report from the hospital room of my almost-75-year-old father.  We watched it together, actually.  My strong Dad is fighting the demands of his heart’s cantankerous life.  It’s giving him some fits, even though every other parcel of his being is looking at that heart like the weak kiddo in PE class whom everyone picks last:  all the other players are ready and able to kick some ass, but this one kid might hold them all back.  One difference in this scenario, however, is that Dad’s heart had never been the weak link in his many decades of being the “first-picked.” So this is new.  And it sucks. 

Tonight I watched my father fighting his heart’s confusing misbehavior. Together we watched this younger grieving father face an excruciating reality without his son.  One truth became quite clear:  Life is defined by loss.  It’s obvious, brutal, real.  It is also what makes precious what we stupidly take for granted.  

You see, I was watching my dad watch a father who lost his baby.  Dad teetered on that cliff when I was quite small, and the fear changed him forever.  Without going into the particulars, in one night Dad lost a wife and almost lost his only two children. But we made it when Mom didn’t.  While this moment tonight was unspoken between us, I would be stunned if Dad didn’t look into the horror of that poor devastated father and not see what could have fully claimed him nearly 40 years ago.

Losing the dad who almost lost me is crushing and eventually (and prayerfully, long from now) inevitable.  Then I look into the faces of my own children and I don’t know how mamas and daddies who lose their babies ever open their eyes again and try to find the sun. The pundits would say we must learn to make the most of every moment and cherish the ones we love and support those in the midst of loss.  All those things are true.  Tonight, though, I just had to process the juxtaposition of these dads in this same world on this same night. I have great hope for both.  I thank God for that.

Big Yellow

October 25, 2014

It's the last Saturday in October and I'm not on a school bus bound for Neosho for the first time since I was 22.  I just woke up with that stark realization. The irony is that, rather than roll over and return to the slumber of which I was so oft deprived as a school-bus-dwelling debate coach, I am wide-eyed with the memories of those brutal mornings and the great relief that I am now spared such brutality. But I also remember how much fun I had in the midst of the exhaustion; and how my heart thumped a little louder knowing that behind me in green pleather seats sat the bleary-eyed brand new debaters who were beginning careers of ass-kicking. They didn't know what was to come, but I did.

This tournament was the annual all-debate, all-novice extravaganza. It "wetted the feet" of the little darlings who were brand new to the activity. If I remember correctly, it was also the first tournament to which I ever took students by myself. Even when it became old hat, the worry that something would go wrong remained from that first solo trip to my very last, nearly two decades later.

Pulling in to a school parking lot in the dark early morning with the fervent prayer that the parking lights of a bus would await me is a colon-twisting feeling that is wildly ironic: it is sad and hopeful and a sensation that I will probably never shake. Being an adult praying to see a school bus is among the more pathetic of my pleas to Jesus...but it was real. The hell that would break loose had I been standing curbside without transportation for myself and thirty+ adolescents made such desperation and consequent prayers quite fervent.

I also remember the powerful anticipation of "bus driver Russian Roulette" I was about to play as I walked from my car to the bus. Which driver would greet me? Friendly and quiet with a general knowledge of the rules of the road? Angry and desperate for a sense of power but no real sense of direction? Perhaps a nice male chauvinist who despised the fact that a girl in her twenties was allegedly in charge? Or a talker: the driver who liked chit chat, homespun tales, and who didn't recognize my earphones and lack of eye contact as a clear signal that I did NOT like chit chat and homespun charm shared in a rearview mirror over the deafening roar of the cantankerous public school bus engine.

After I navigated the excitement of meeting my new best friend behind the wheel, I then got to spread good morning greetings to my dear debaters. I took some pleasure in adopting the persona of a stewardess on crack, extolling the wonders of the great gift we all shared by way of a trip to Neosho at 6am. Since my normal daily presentation was equally intense but less cartoonish and more cynical, this show tended to startle the youngins just enough for my amusement. I saved the devil in me for those poor stragglers who deigned to board even a minute late. I am proud to report that the fear of encountering the angry "you kept us waiting" me served as a powerful tool and was also a bit of theatre for those who made it on time. 

To be continued...

Sky and Synapses

September 13, 2014
10am

I'm sitting on the back deck drinking coffee and reading The New Yorker. The temperature has dropped into Fall after weeks of humidity and heat. I'm surrounded by trees and cloudless sky of almost "October blue" that my favorite English teacher referenced once, after opening his Norton Anthology, casting a reflective glance out the window of our classroom into the endless blue, shutting said anthology, and then pronouncing, "I can't do this today." He walked out after looking at us all briefly, frozen for a moment to see, perhaps, if we understood that this class was over, and why it was over. I understood. I, too, often found myself governed by the look of the sky: sun and warmth called to me like a siren; rain evoked a stronger work ethic and introspection.  Neither have changed. I have always TRIED to stand up to my devotion to the weather when in conflict with the duty at hand. So, when Dr. Closser succumbed to it on that October afternoon in my nineteenth year, my admiration for him--and for this sky--soared.

Dr. Closser remains one of my favorite professors. His love for poetry, which he usually recited from memory, was infectious. And he taught always with a bottle of water nearby, as a cancer of which he never spoke had compromised his salivary glands. His surveys of literature reinforced my love of the language and my awe when woven artistically into story or verse. As a college student, I was in that rare place and time when I could rejoice in intellectual pursuits unapologetically and with little distraction: the demands of adult life had not yet set upon me; the pragmatic implications of what I was learning were absent. I got to learn to learn. I didn't yet have to find a way to "use" what I was absorbing in this analysis of the words of minds so much greater than mine. I look back at the copious notes I took in the margins of texts and the synapses fire again, but they have certainly been dulled by choices I have made, by time, by the logistics of life. I know I can sharpen them again. This morning is proof. I believe I shall.

I am not much of a coffee drinker, and I tend to get up and go, rather than easing in to my day. But a late night and this pristine, chilly weather demanded an audience. That smart girl two decades ago and I applaud. 

On my way back

September 9, 2014

Yesterday I had lunch with a dear friend who I've known all my life. I hadn't seen her in a long while and had not sat down with her in nearly a decade. She is a beautiful, accomplished doctor who has traveled the world working with the impoverished. She has always downplayed her role in this world, but I know what I know. 

Another thing I like about this pal is that she thinks I am hilarious. Making anyone laugh is one of my favorite things to do (and something I haven't done much of lately) and as I regaled her with crazy tales of my former teaching life, she cracked up again and again. I felt like my old self. I felt like the person reflected in her laughter.

She has no inkling of the low lows and struggles of the past months, and I didn't want to tell her. I got nearly two hours of time travel to ME. And I wanted to stay. How fitting, then, that this picture was hanging next to our booth:  "she was on a journey back to her wings" read the soul of the pic.

As we parted ways and I walked through downtown, I was lighter. Maybe it was the wings...

The Grandmothers

June 21, 2014

My grandmothers have been on my mind lately. They were both very tough broads, and perhaps my feeling less-than-tough lately has turned my thoughts to them. They certainly make me look like the weak link...or like I took a dip in the shallow end of the gene pool.

My mom's mom was Henrietta, whom we affectionately called Nanny. In my view, she was the cat's pajamas. We lived with Nanny and Papa for over two years after my mom died. There we lived from the end of my 4th year to my mid-7th. Nanny and I were roommates during that time. Each night she slathered a healthy dose of Mentholatum under her nose, turned off the light, then gave me a well-intentioned good night smooch. In the dark, however, 9 times out of ten what I got was a mouthful of Mentholatum before Nanny drifted into a chorus of snores that could have raised the roof.

When Nanny was a young mother in the late 1930s/early 1940s, clothes dryers had yet to emerge on the scene. Instead, one would send the wet laundry through a "wringer" which would pull each item through and "wring" the water out. One fateful day, Nanny was leaning down to pick up some clothes when her thick brown hair got caught in the wringer. Much of her hair was pulled out by the root. It grew back only sparsely, which left Nanny with the best that the Eva Gabor wig line could offer. She had an assortment of styrofoam wig heads on which she would rest her synthetic hair, and on which I would draw some very Picasso-esque faces, complete with makeup.

Nanny loved us dearly. Next in line were three other loves: Viceroy cigs, complete with cig holder; a gold lamé cup holder holding a glass of Gin and Tonic, and "Days of our Lives." I attended morning Kindergarten, as a matter of fact, so I wouldn't miss watching Nanny's "story" every afternoon before she would take her daily afternoon snooze in her rust-colored, cigarette-burns-on-the-arms recliner. One day, before she drifted off, I was sidled up next to her as we watched the drama unfold in that classic soap opera. I reached over and took a swig of her drink. As I quickly spat out what clearly was NOT water, Nanny didn't skip a beat: "That'll teach you to drink my water," she said with a wry grin.

Nanny's older sister never had children and was among the first female deans in any American college or university. "Auntie" was a bit too proper for my tastes and always encouraged me to "act like a lady," which wore me out. She lived just a mile away from Nanny, and would pop in regularly. But her timing was sometimes off, and she would arrive during the magic hour of "Days." Auntie would attempt conversation with Nanny while I looked on from the couch. Nanny wouldn't respond, save commercial breaks. After being ignored long enough, Auntie would grab her "pocketbook," get up, and leave in a huff. Nanny would just shake her head, take a drag from her cig (via holder, of course), and say, "I've told her not to interrupt my story," without ever taking her eyes off the television. She would inevitably continue, "she'll get glad in the same pants she got mad in." And indeed, Auntie always came back for more.

Nanny had the best laugh and a quick temper. She was also incapable of whispering and had a penchant for observing and voicing the faults in others (I get that from her): not mean spirited, just filter-free. But I could not have loved her more. And she made me feel like I was something else. Several years later, I was holding her hand when she took her last breath.

Not a day goes by when I don't miss her. It took me years to lose the impulse to pick up the phone and call her when something big happened. I had to remind myself that she was gone.

I would imagine she's up in heaven, smokin' 'em if she's got 'em. My guess is--if it's possible--she has her eye on me.

My dad's mom was a bit less colorful, but was absolutely a quiet, wise, unparalleled force. Born in 1905, she lived the bulk of her life working her fingers to the bone. Mimi was not a big lady, but she birthed three babies over 10 pounds each--the first two in the farmhouse in which she lived.

My Dad and his sisters grew up on a farm in the little town of Marionville. They were poor, hard-working Christian folks. Salt of the earth. Everything Mimi did, she did well. Everything Mimi did, she did without complaint.

When my Dad was almost twelve, there was a thick layer of snow on the ground. Mimi was cooking--as usual--when the back of her dress caught in the stove. Very quickly the flames crawled up her back. Dad grabbed her and threw her out onto the snow, beating out the flames. The entirety of her back side was badly burned, and she spent weeks in bed while Dad's older sister (just a teenager herself) took over the responsibilities of the house and changed poor Mimi's bandages daily.

If catching on fire wasn't enough, Mimi's eyesight began to deteriorate from complications of glaucoma when she was in her late 60s. By her late 70s, when I was around 8, she lost her eyesight completely. As a woman of almost 80, she had to learn how to live in the dark. Even without her sight, Mimi continued the play the piano at her home church, Buck Prairie. Her memory of the notes and the keys was strong enough to see her musical talent through. She played there for 52 years.

In spite of a life of hard labor and hardship, Mimi lived to be 91. I picture her at a heavenly piano...and she can see.